All formats captain Babar Azam has announced his leadership resignation from all three formats of the game. Shortly afterwards his announcement, PCB announced Shan Masood and Shaheen Afridi as the new Test and ODI captains. With Babar’s era done, How good was Babar Azam as Pakistan Captain?
We are going to review all formats of the game and look at his record.
Babar Azam as Pakistan Captain: Test Cricket
| Matches | Win | Loss | Win/Loss % |
| 20 | 10 | 6 | 1.67% |
His first assignment in the traditional form of the game was against South Africa at home. For the first time in history, Pakistan won a Test series against the Proteas. That was a positive start for the national team.
The Green Team won the next series against Zimbabwe (2-0) before they levelled the West Indies series (1-1). This was followed by a 1-0 series win over Bangladesh.
What was followed afterwards was a failure of series wins. They lost to Australia (1-0) and England (3-0) at home and managed to draw series over Sri Lanka (1-1) and New Zealand (0-0). Babar’s last assignment was a series win in Sri Lanka (2-0).
To define Babar’s Test captain in simple words; he was brilliant away but clueless at home. In fact, his eight away wins are the second-best by the national team skipper.
Babar Azam as Pakistan Captain: White-ball Cricket
One Day Cricket
| Matches | Win | Loss | Win/Loss % |
| 43 | 26 | 15 | 1.73% |
His strong suit and best format, Azam’s multi-nation tournaments are in complete contrast as compared to bilateral series. In events, he failed to lead the team to the knockout stages.
Also Read: Babar Azam’s failures in tournaments; How big has this affected the Pakistan team?
But the bilateral series has been exceptional. Out of nine bilateral series, Pakistan won seven including series wins over South Africa (first time since 2013), Australia (first time since 2002) and New Zealand (first time since 2010).
As a result, Pakistan reached the No.1 ranking for the first time in the ODI rankings.
T20 Internationals
| Matches | Win | Loss | Win/Loss % |
| 71 | 42 | 23 | 1.82% |
Azam’s best result throughout his leadership also came in the T20I cricket.
While he may have lost series against Australia (in 2019) and England twice (2021, 2022) and a one-off game against the Aussies, he won eight bilateral series including twice each against South Africa, Zimbabwe, West Indies and Bangladesh. This also includes a tri-series win in New Zealand.
On top of that, Azam led Pakistan to two ICC Men’s T20 World Cups and twice led them to the top four. He came very close in the 2022 edition but fell just short in the final.
One important highlight that will be remembered is under his leadership, Pakistan defeated India in a World Cup match for the very first time and came ever so close to making it two.
He’s got a joint world record; most successful T20I captain of all time. With 42 wins, he shares the record with Eoin Morgan and Asghar Afghan.
Overall, Babar Azam’s final leadership reads;
| Matches | Win | Loss | Win/Loss % |
| 134 | 78 | 44 | 1.77% |
Do you think Babar did well during his stint? Or was he not good enough?
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